Essay On Poverty In Canada

Poverty in Canada: An Issue of Human Rights How would someone survive if they couldn 't find a job? Even if they could, what if that job wasn 't enough to support them and their family? This is the reality that many people in poverty face, just trying to survive in Canada. They may be poor, but they aren 't recognized unless they 're sitting on a street corner begging for money, or on an advertisement for the poor in a third-world country. The lack of information concerning poverty makes it a struggle for impoverished people to support themselves, forcing people to stay in poverty with an inadequate standard of living unfit for humans, making poverty an abuse of human rights that is perpetuated by society. This lack of knowledge perpetuates …show more content…
“...historically in Canada, racism toward First Nations peoples has taken the form of paternalistic policies propagated to protect “childlike” peoples incapable of managing their own affairs” (Sharma, page 15). This assumes that Aboriginal peoples are incapable of being responsible for their own survival, giving into the perception that they are lazy or stupid, which is untrue. They are still heavily disadvantaged in Canadian society. At such a disadvantage, that “half of the status First Nations children live in poverty...children in reserves under federal jurisdiction were in the worst situation, often living with poor drinking water, and in run-down homes” (The Canadian Encyclopedia). This is basically the definition of an inadequate standard of living; bad drinking water, run-down, unsafe home, most likely too young to be able to work or gain compensation from the government. There is very little they can do to fix their situation due to the circumstances, and the federal government is clearly allowing this to happen, violating the rights of immigrants and Aboriginal peoples all across Canada to the point where they have to turn to clearly unsafe environments to